Partners up with leading identity protection vendor

Dec 18, 2009 13:24 GMT  ·  By

Security vendor Prevx has signed an agreement with CPP, a large life assistance provider, to incorporate the Prevx 3.0.5 software, complete with the new SafeOnline technology, into its identity protection product. As a result, around one million UK residents who signed up for CPP's Identity Protection Alert (IPA) policy will benefit from the Prevx protection for free.

Prevx is a security software vendor based in the UK. The company's flaghsip product, Prevx 3.0.5, is an anti-malware program well known for its advanced heuristic detection and rootkit removal capabilities. Additionally, the software's very low impact on system resources, resulting from its use of cloud-based technology, is another strong selling point.

At the beginning of November, the security company launched a new product called Prevx SafeOnline, which is capable of protecting online transactions and securing browsing sessions. A low-level system component in the form of a kernel driver allows the program to thwart phishing or man-in-the-browser attacks performed by banking trojans and other information stealing malware.

Prevx SafeOnline can be installed and function independently or as a component for Prevx 3.0.5, which itself can run alongside other security software without any problems. By default, the software protects all browsing sessions over the HTTPs protocol, but users can manually define particular websites. The software also prevents malware from capturing information entered into Web forms on any site.

The agreement with CPP is the first step in the company's plan to partner with financial institutions in order to distribute the technology to their customers. CPP offers life assistance, identity protection and card insurance services. It has an estimated 10 million customers and 280 business partners across Europe, North America and Asia.

"Every individual user who has the CPP's Identity Protection Alert product (IPA) as part of their relationship with a business or financial institution will be able to download Prevx 3.0.5 (including Prevx SafeOnline) as a component of that product from CPP," a Prevx spokesperson wrote in an e-mail to Softpedia. At the moment, the deal covers only CPP's customer base in UK, but the companies are in talks for extending it. "Prevx is in discussions with CPP in all other countries in which it [CPP] operates," the representative noted.

Before Prevx SafeOnline was released, a vulnerability management company called Immunity was contracted to test it against various computer threats. "PrevX SafeOnline was successful in preventing modern trojans and credential stealers from targeting Immunity's usernames, passwords, and other information when installed," the company concluded in its report.

Users can give Prevx SafeOnline a spin by downloading and installing a demo version that only protects browsing sessions on five predefined websites: Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, CleverBridge.com, PayPal.com and Prevx.com.